Well, its been a busy month both professionally and personally. After much research and due diligence, we’ve moved EvolvePoint to Blacksburg, Virginia from Alexandria, Virginia. EvolvePoint is now a part of the VT KnowledgeWorks program, a technology business accelerator and incubator located in the Virgina Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC).
There are numerous reasons for the move. First was the realization that a firm developing software, especially Internet based applications, can exist virtually anywhere. The Washington DC metro area has many advantages for businesses, but there are some significant drawbacks for companies, especially a startup. Here’s a partial list (and if you have lived in DC, you’ll remember the pain): traffic, overall high cost of living, insanely high cost of real estate, poor air quality and pollution, and traffic (yes, this was mentioned again on purpose). Add to that more business specific reasons including high office space costs and an expensive labor pool.
If you’re a biotech company (270 corridor), a government contractor (in and around the beltway), or in telecommunications (Dulles corridor), you pretty much have no choice but to be located in the greater Washington DC area. But Internet based companies? Not really. I think the trend is for these type of companies to actually be moving to smaller cities (future post).
After a decision was made to move, the bigger question was how to determine and find the new area. I used the following criteria to help us guide the decision:
- Lower cost of living than DC
- Existing base of technology companies
- High quality labor pool to hire from
- Abundance of outdoor activities (ok, this one is more personal, but one could argue it adds to an overall higher quality of life
- Remain on the east coast
From these criteria I started filtering through all the various areas and incubator programs out there. I was specifically look for places that would support and enable a small startup to thrive. To make a long story a bit shorter, I stumbled upon the CRC and VT KnowledgeWorks both from some Googling and eventually finding Pat Matthews’ blog. It turns out I wasn’t the only one to have this idea.
The fact that I’m a Hokie (both degrees, aerospace engineering and MBA), probably influenced me a bit, but Blacksburg is truly a great place to live and grow a business. There will be many things I’ll miss from the DC area, but I feel I’ve given the business a much greater chance to succeed being here. We’ll see how things go and I’ll be sure to keep updating with some of the notable business activities in the Blacksburg / New River Valley area.
The more exposure to the opportunities and events that are occurring here for business will only help in attracting more quality talent to the area. When I was in school here it wasn’t even an option to remain in Blacksburg for engineering or IT jobs. Now graduating students can remain, especially with over 130 companies in the CRC alone. If I had known what was really happening down here I may have moved sooner.
